


The Body Perpetual

by TychoBrandt



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Gen, Some live because death is too good for them, Some live because that's all they know, Some live because they want to
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25506127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TychoBrandt/pseuds/TychoBrandt
Summary: It could've been a fungus. It could've been a meteor. It could've been a god. It doesn't matter. Life continues, with gritted teeth and curled fist.And death continues with it.Behold Jackson before, during, and after, as Ellie builds a semblance of a life. She won't have to do it alone.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Maria/Tommy (The Last of Us)
Kudos: 13





	1. Waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acceptabletwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acceptabletwig/gifts).



“Ellie’s back.”

Pike looks up. Briefly—then returns to her work. The fuel won’t make itself, and the fine people of Jackson don’t seem to understand what ‘rationing’ is, no matter how many times she spells it out at the town meetings. “That’s good.” A pause. 

Salvo looks exasperated. “You don’t even—don’t you want to see her? She’s—”

She gives him an incredulous look. “You think she wants to see _me?”_

Salvo pauses. Spreads his hands. “Okay—maybe not _you_ —but—”

“I’ll see her when she’s ready, Sal. Whenever that is.” It could be a hundred years from now and that’d be fine by Pike.

"But—"

" _Salvador_. Can't you be doing anything else?"

\---

Pike and Joel get along. Well enough, anyway. He doesn’t say much. She doesn’t say much. They trade the barest of pleasantries and get on with their lives. Not like Tommy—he just wants to talk and talk and talk. 

She doesn’t know how Maria puts up with it. Maybe it’s nice to have someone occupy that silence. 

She knew what Joel was within minutes of meeting him. Couldn’t hide it—she could taste it in the air, hard and bitter. She wasn’t much different, and in a way, that was comforting. 

\---

How did she get into Jackson? Funny story. Tommy loves to tell it—and Pike hates to hear it told.

He needs to be a few drinks in. Then, Tommy usually tells it like this:

“So I was just walking along the walls, minding my own business. You know me.

And suddenly—there’s the girl, walking along. And she doesn’t look up! There’s a whole dam, with walls and everything, and she doesn’t look up!

So I say, ‘hey, you!’ And she finally looks up. Glares up. And she says, ‘what?’ Like I’m an idiot. And I say, ‘where are you going?’ and she says, ‘away from here.’ So I’m thinking, ‘damn, she’s a tough son of a bitch,’ not flinching with a rifle trained on her. So I say, ‘you want to come in?’ And she says, ‘no.’” 

That’s when people start laughing, Maria especially. “And she keeps walking. Right out of sight! And I think, ‘she’s something else.’ But a week later, she’s walking by again! And I say, ‘hey!’ And she barely looks up. I tell her she can come inside, if she wants. And she walks almost the whole way past Jackson before she stops and shrugs and says ‘fine.’ And she comes in like it’s no big thing!”

That gets a lot of laughs. Pike is glad—looking back—that Tommy didn’t shoot her, or she didn’t shoot Tommy. The truth of how they met is less pleasant, makes for a less comical story. But she lets him tell that version, because—well, it’s for the best.

\---

“Can you watch JJ?”

Pike stares at Robin. “What?”

“It’s just for the afternoon.” Robin gestures out the window. “You know Cole. Cancer got him. He’s at the end of his rope, and—gonna sit with him as he goes. I owe him that much. After all this.” Robin gestures again, this time at everything and nothing.

Pike balks. She shoves her fists into her pockets. She squints down at the floorboards and frowns and creases her brow and scratches at her face, but woe to her, she can’t find a way out of this one. God knows Robin has covered her ass a hundred times in this damned town. “I… well, alright. Since you asked.”

Robin rolls his eyes. “I’m not asking a lot, here, Molly. Cut the shit. Your next patrol—” 

He’s not. He’s really not. Pike knows that. But she’s not a ‘kid’ person. She’s not like Cat or Dina. But: “I said I’d do it.”

\---

JJ wants a story. Or a lullaby. Pike’s not sure. It’s only seven o’clock at night and the kid is yawning. This is ridiculous. She thought he’d be running around until midnight. Aren’t kids supposed to be full of energy, or something? Why does he want to turn in _now?_ Damn it—

Pike wracks her brain, exhuming old memories she had hoped would stay still and buried. It’s been years and years. Finally, something comes to mind, faint, yes, but:

_“He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger_

_And finally drank a-way his mem-o-ry_

_Life is short but this time it was big-ger_

_Then the strength to get up off his knees_

_We found him with his face down in the pil-low_

_With a note that said I’d love her ‘til I die_

_And when we bur-ied him be-neath the wil-low_

_The angels sang a whiskey lul—”_

JJ was staring up at her, eyes wide, his brow furrowed. His little hands were pulling at the lapels of her jacket, either to get her to stop, or—

“It’s alright, buddy,” she says, suddenly tired. “I’ll… think of another one. I’ve got more.”

It’s a lie. She doesn’t. But JJ falls asleep, anyways, perhaps out of some charity. Pike falls asleep with him soon after. Her snores are quiet enough not to wake him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Last of Us 2 was... fine._
> 
> _Some interesting ideas, some interesting character concepts. But it was too much, too dense, too fast. Too many things at once, too many coincidences. Gameplay that was at odd with the themes presented. Shooter videogames are, for the most part, like that._
> 
> _Could've had it just be Abby and Lev, doing their thing. Could've just been Jackson: The Game, surviving and being domestic (much like this fanfiction, actually). Then again, wouldn't have made a direct sequel, myself. Same setting, but different region, different characters, different time. Brazil, maybe. On the Amazon river. Swimming infected, why not?_
> 
> _So this story is... before and during and after the first game, and somehow part of yet not part of the second. Joel and Jesse are alive, I think. Pike's kind of a disjointed person, so the narrative is disjointed with her._
> 
> _Were it not obvious, this was completely inspired by the works of[Acceptabletwig.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acceptabletwig/pseuds/acceptabletwig/works?fandom_id=592967) So give 'em a look._


	2. Nostalgia

There’s this memory Pike has. It’s from before Jackson. 

She was threading her way through a forest in Montana. It was early, cold but clear. She had no trail, just the sun and a rusting compass and a map that had been folded and refolded so many times it looked like graph paper. Her ankle was sore from a misstep the day before—she had been careless in tracking the blood of a whitetail doe. But her stomach was no longer hollow and she had another hide for winter; fair trade in her mind.

She emerged into a clearing. 

With a sigh, she sat down with her back to the tree line. She looked up at the clouds and let her mind wander. 

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realize that someone had walked past her.

Pike’s intestines coiled tight as her blood frosted over. She slowly turned her head to look. Whoever it was—they hadn’t made a sound. But they had been within arm’s reach of her.

Standing twenty steps away from her, in the shade of a pine, was an infected.

It was looking at her.

She didn’t move.

It was grey and scaly and naked; its clothes had fallen from it years ago. Its head was heavy with horns of coral and plates of bone. A single eye bored out from the depths of that great mass, wide and unblinking and terrible. Its breath misted between teeth like broken porcelain.

It was looking at her.

Pike forgot to blink. She wanted to reach for her gun, but at this angle the holster was pinned between her and a rock. Her pack was out of arm’s reach. She stopped breathing. She began to move… slowly. So slowly.

Its eye narrowed.

Pike stopped.

It inhaled—and Pike steeled herself, awaits the scream to summon the horde that will twist her joints apart and pull the limbs from her body—but instead it heaved a great sigh, dissipating like steam into the morning air.

And as soon as it appeared, it turned and quietly walked away into the forest.

Pike covered the most ground in a day she ever had, after that. She didn’t sleep that night, either. Just had her gun in her lap and stared into the darkness and waited.

She never told anyone this story. No one would believe her.


	3. Maintenance

The electricity and running water is nice. She’ll concede that much.

But not being slowly exsanguinated by mosquitoes or waking up covered in ticks or finding pale worms in her shit after hours of a cramped and contorted stomach? Better.

\---  
When they first began they couldn’t produce enough penicillin to save a single person. Too little, too unstable, too inconsistent. They always had soap and alcohol and a kettle of boiling water on hand to sterilize, but you can only do so much. Magnesium sulfate? Zinc sulfate? This isn’t as simple as making lime or lye.

In the beginning, Carter had the hope that they could shore up a surplus of antibiotics and start a little enterprise. Sell, trade, whatever—Voere bought into the idea, too, kept trying to get Tommy and Maria on board. Make Jackson a place that traders would prioritize, that bandits would reconsider attacking. But that dream died just as quickly as the bacteria they exposed to their penicillin. 

\---

They keep a stockpile of emergency fuel. Just enough barrels, stacked in the back, cool and dry and away from curious eyes. Biofuel loses potency after a month, but if stored in ideal conditions, it can last years.

These are far from ideal conditions. But they do it anyway. They swap it out once a year. The lesser stuff they relegate to lamp fuel. 

People always ask for more. They point to the beet harvest, say that an extra gallon here or there can be spared, ask for more on holidays. But living in Jackson has made them soft. They don’t remember living in the cold and dark. 

Now, when they ask for more fuel, Pike usually just points to the trees outside the walls and says “go get it.”

\---

Everyone calls her Pike. Not Ms. Pike, not Miss Pike, not Miz Pike, not Missus Pike. Pike. Just Pike.

There’s only a handful of people that know her first name—or care, anyway. A smaller handful, with Eugene gone.

It’s a thought that gives her pause, sometimes.

\---

Pike thinks Dina is all right.

She doesn’t get squeamish at the sight of blood or pushing needle through skin and tissue. She isn’t overly enthusiastic about it either, which is also good. People excited to see insides-on-the-outside make bad   
doctors and worse soldiers. She’s a little flighty and jokes too much, but she never wastes anything. She’s still mostly a kid, apocalypse or not, motherhood or not.

There was a time early on that Dina called her ‘Pikey,’ however.

She didn’t speak to the girl for three days. 

\---

When a horse gets old, or breaks a leg out afield, there’s not much you can do but put it down.

The difference is that most people don’t start skinning and field dressing the animal then and there.

A horse has a lot of surface area, hence, a lot of skin. They weigh over a thousand pounds—and a lot of that is edible.

The first time Tommy saw Pike pop out a dead horse’s eyeball, he laughed. “That’s disgusting. What’s it taste like?”

“Calories,” she had said, tossing it into the cookpot. It hisses and crackled.

The people of Jackson don’t turn up their nose at raccoon or opossum. Skunk—well, cut out the glands and mix it in the stew or burger with something else, people won’t notice (or pretend not to). The older generation is more sentimental about beef and pork and venison and less keen on organs, but the kids see meat as meat. Good for them. Even fish head soup goes well with them—“it makes you swim better,” Joel said, his expression neutral. They bought it.

Nonetheless, horse meat is a hard sell. Especially when it had a name like ‘Starlight’ and you used to comb its mane.

Dogs? Forget about it. When feral dogs roam too close to the livestock the ranchers just shoot them full of arrows and dump them back into the woods to be carried home by their compatriots. Twenty to forty pounds of meat each, thrown away. Waste of nutrients, if you ask Pike. But no one asks Pike. 

Cats? They eat the mice and rats and the infected seem to avoid them for some reason, so they leave them be. Don’t make good eating, anyway, Pike knows from earlier times. Stringy and tough and still torment you from the inside after death. And they’ve got enough town cats sauntered through town and along fences that the kids would never forgive her.

\---

Pike watches Seth wipe out the inside of a glass. He’s been at that glass a while.

“I mean, if it were my daughter… I guess I would’ve hit him too.”

Pike drinks.

“She’s not a bad person,” he continues, finally placing the glass down. “She’s a credit to the community. But she and Dina and—what’s her name? Cathy? Katrina?—are around kids. You don’t want them getting confused, about how things work. More confused, I mean, with this Cor-dee-ceps business.” He gestures out the window. “JJ’s going to be the only boy in town with two mothers. How’re you going to explain that to him?” He looks down. “Not enough boys her age, maybe,” he mutters.

Pike drinks.

“And we’re getting old. Jackson’s getting old. We need grandchildren, not…” He waves. “Young... professionals.” He frowns. “And Dina… I never thought… because of her and Jesse, you know.” He sighs. “That boy is a smartass. Definitely his mother’s son. Reckon a girl can only take so much.”

Pike drinks. Or tries to: her glass is empty. She places it on the bar counter. Better quit while she’s ahead. She doesn’t want a repeat of how she and Seth first met—took years to smooth that over. Maria thought ‘pistols at dawn’ was a joke, until it wasn’t.

“I’ll see you around, Seth.”

\---

It’s Pike’s turn for kill duty.

(When she was sixteen and starved for honor, Ellie offered to be placed on kill duty. Joel and Tommy and Maria were dead silent. Pike just said, “no.”)

When it’s someone from Jackson who gets bitten, it’s a little different. The infected says their goodbyes, writes out their will, and then heads to the clinic. Voere pumps them full of diethyl ether (nitrous oxide isn’t enough) then poisons them with whatever’s on hand. Funeral is usually the next day.

Kill duty is a less elaborate affair. Someone from outside the walls—traveler, bandit, loner, whoever—doesn’t get the same ritual. They get stripped and checked over at the main gate, at gunpoint if they don’t cooperate. And if they’re bitten? Well.

They walked less than a mile out of Jackson. “This is it.”

It’s a small hollow in the trees. Easy to miss, right before sunrise like this. Push through and you’ll find a little cabin nestled inside.

No one lived in that cabin.

The man grunted, halfway to a laugh. “You gonna lock me in there, until I turn? Is that it? Solitary?”

“No. I don’t have the time.”

The man laughed, all the way, this time. He didn’t struggle when they tied his hands behind his back, patted him down. Didn’t need to gag him, either. At worst, the guards would have to hogtie the condemned and toss them over the back of a horse, thrashing all the while. But Pike likes walking them. It has a sense of finality to it, even if her current charged dragged out the ‘finality’ part with his limp.

Pike gestured to a tree a stone’s throw from the cabin. “There.”

“You going to hang me?”

“Forgot the rope.”

The trunk of the tree was marred, scored deep with holes. 

“Ah. Firing squad.”

“That’s it.”

The man’s gait slowed as he neared the tree. Slowed and slowed until it seemed like he was barely moving. He just looked at it for a while, from the roots to the top of it. He rubbed awkwardly at his left calf with his right foot. They took his boots—they were nice boots, and less work for the cobbler—but they gave him a few pairs of old socks beyond mending. They’re black with dirt now.

“Thanks,” he said.

Pike waited.

“For the bullet, I mean. Always thought hanging was a sorry way out. And most would just stick my head in a bucket of water for a while or bash my head in with a shovel.”

“It’s a handload,” Pike said. 

“Still. I appreciate the effort.” He took those last few steps. He turned, lined his back straight with the trunk of the tree. The sound of his shirt against the bark was loud. 

Pike disengaged the safety on her rifle. “Anything else? Last words? That kind of thing.”

The man looked pensive for a moment, studying the ground. And then: “Nah. I’m good. Ready when you are.”

Pike didn’t miss. The sun crested the horizon.


	4. Promises

When Pike dreams, it is not of the time before. It is never of anything good.

\---

Dolmers looked down at the gun in his hand. He was trembling.

“I can’t.”

He looked up. His eyes were red. The veins of his face were dark, his gums black.

“Pike, I c-can’t.”

She just looked at him. She couldn't speak. 

“It won’t let m-me. It knows. It—it—it wants me to—” He swings his arm up swiftly and presses the gun to his temple, but his hand is perfectly still. Impossibly still, as the rest of his body twitches. “I can’t.”

He slowly held out the revolver to Pike. 

“I need you.”

Pike looked at the gun. Looked at him. Why couldn't she will herself to move? He was crying. Red cut threads down the pallor of his face.

“Pike,” he plead in a wet rasp, “it’s gotta be you. Don’t… don’t leave me like—”

She took the gun from him. He withdrew his hand quickly.

He looked over the mountainside. “You… you know the w-way from here?”

“... Yeah.”

Dolmers nods. A sudden, jerking motion. “O-okay.” He turns around, walks a few steps, and sits down.

For a while, it was just like that. Dolmers sitting, Pike standing, gun in numb fingers. It’s quiet. There’s a cool breeze, growing colder. They were both thinking of earlier times.

There was only such much to think on. Time’s up. “Ready?”

A pause. A long, unsteady breath. “Thanks, Pike.” And then: “Do it.”

Pike did. The sun set over them and the world became starless and grey.


	5. Grounds

Pike furrows her brow, squinting down into her tea. “What… is it?”

“Cat nip,” Dottie says mildly.

Pike glances at the window. An old tomcat she recognizes was peering in. “Huh. It’s… different,” she says.

“Very observant, Molly, thank you.” She sips coolly. 

\---

Maybe two thirds of the houses of Jackson lie empty. In decent repair, obviously—each building had been thoroughly (if not obsessively) scoured for human corpses and potential sporebearers, to begin with, then built up to prevent incursion of mold and mildew and wild animals. Timber was not hard to find in these parts. 

\---

Birthdays are a curious affair. Few of the younger ones have an exact date—when you’re out on the road, not everyone has a watch and a calendar. And those whose parents died and were carried along by others, well—all you can do is guess. So the town places more focus on its holidays—Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and so on.

Anniversaries of their own making are a bit more valued. When it’s Maria and Tommy’s anniversary? The whole town gets into it. They’re the de facto aunt and uncle of every young blood in this town, whether they were born here or arrived here.

As always, there is music. Wendy hefts her guitar, pulls the microphone close (that Dina got it to work is still something she points out whenever anyone uses it), and begins:

_Maria's sittin' on the old front porch  
Watchin' the chickens peck the ground  
There ain't a whole lot goin' on tonight  
In this one-horse town  
Over yonder comin' up the road  
In a beat-up Chevy truck  
Her boyfriend Tommy, he's layin' on the horn  
Splashin' through the mud and the muck_

Everyone knows this one. The lyrics are… a bit different, though.

_Her daddy says he ain't worth a lick  
When it comes to brains, he got the short end of the stick  
But Maria's young and man, she just don't care  
She'd follow Tommy anywhere_

It’s not exactly a song to dance to, but with enough beer and liquor, well, miracles are possible. The crowd sings along to the refrain.

_She's in love with the boy  
She's in love with the boy  
She's in love with the boy  
And even if they have to run away  
She's gonna marry that boy someday_

Wendy finishes the song to rousing applause. She bows, with a bit of a mocking flourish. Then she points at Tommy. He points at himself, mouthing, “who, me?” Wendy gives him a look, and he grins. With a few loping strides he’s on the stage, and Wendy hands him the guitar. He adjusts the microphone (with a bit of fanfare—some of the kids laugh), and takes a seat.  
He looks pensive, for a moment, before locking eyes with his wife across the room.

_She said, "I've seen you in here before."  
I said, "I've been here a time or two."  
She said, "I’m Maria, how do you do.  
See now, I’ve had my eye on you._

_And why, I’m feeling kinda wild tonight.  
You're the only cowboy in this place.  
And if you're up for a rodeo,  
I'll put a big Texas smile on your face."  
I said, "Ma’am,_

_I ain't as good as I once was  
I got a few years on me now  
But there was a time  
Back in my prime  
When I could really lay it down._

_And if you need some love tonight  
Then I might have just enough.  
I ain't as good as I once was,  
But I'm as good once as I ever was."_

Everyone laughs and cheers. Maria covers her face, but she was smiling.

The man can still man his woman blush. That counts for something.

\---

There’s a greenhouse on the edge of town. Easy to miss. The padlock is something of an oddity, however. 

Watch closely, and you’ll notice that Joel goes there now and there.

What could be inside?

Well, take a look. 

Three rows of five shrubs. That’s all. Joel just has a particular attachment to those fifteen plants.

Those plants are _Coffea canephora. ___

__Joel has been agonizingly tended to them for three years. In two years—if the stars align—they will begin bearing fruit. And, more importantly, beans. By his calculations, if all comes to pass and nothing goes awry, he will be able to supply himself with... one six-ounce cup of coffee, per day, indefinitely._ _

__“Now that one,” Joel says low and conspiratorial, pointing to a larger shrub in the back, “might be good to go in just one more year. That’ll be somethin.’”_ _

__Ellie and Pike glance at each other. Ellie rolls her eyes._ _

__\---_ _

__Building a wall around three square miles of town is no simple thing._ _

__In those days the biofuel rationing meant that construction vehicles—the few they could find and tow to Jackson—could only be used when absolutely necessary. Everything else was human strength and draft teams. More than a few horses were inadvertently worked to death or had to be put down from a broken leg._ _

__Timber was not an issue. Cutting back the encroaching treeline to provide a clear line-of-sight provided more material than they needed. Stone and gravel for simple foundation and shoring did not prove difficult to find, either (moving it was another story). The reinforcing elements—concrete, cement, steel—were additions slowly made as time went on. That the walls were mostly wood was a perpetual concern—the infected had forgotten their ancestors’ wisdom in to harness fire, but the bandits hadn’t. So began the agonizingly slow process of finding sources of sodium borate and other flame retardants and painting them upon the gates and the more obvious areas of attack. Slow work, with little honor or glory to its name. “Painting duty” was one of the most feared of consequences for the younger ones._ _

__\---_ _

__There’s a trona mine not too far from Jackson—to the southeast. It’s a bit closer to the old Cheyenne QZ than anyone would like, though. There are other ways to get sodium bicarbonate, sure, but trona makes it easier._ _

__More importantly, there’s a lead mine in that very area._ _

__Not something to be overlooked, these days. The area is somewhat contested, but not a warzone. Bandits don’t have the patience to mine and refine, much less lug away carts of lead. Disagreements between the groups there are political, mostly._ _

__Shipments come in regularly. Everyone knows to pick up their spent cartridge casings, and the metallurgists and chemists of Jackson have hammered out a decent formula for gunpowder and re-using old primers (Carter almost lost his fingers, then his hands, in his hubris. Yet his work paid off, and all his body has to show for it are some burns darkening his hands and crawling up his forearms. He doesn’t complain, though Pike is sure they still itch in the heat and cold, and he shies away from handshakes). But sometimes, after a hard night with infected or a protracted skirmish with unusually dedicated bandits, everyone feels the lightness in their magazines. Even in the beginning, when ammunition was more plentiful than water, Tommy and Maria have always been averse to dependence on the outside world._ _

__Hence, the bow and arrow._ _

__Pines and firs—softwoods—won’t do for a good bow backing or arrow shafts, of course. Maple—hardwood— is what Wyoming offers best in that regard._ _

__(The more confident patrollers carry javelins, as well, in the case they face down something larger.)_ _

__\---_ _

__All of Jackson’s houses run on septic tanks._ _

__That’s generally a good thing, until it’s time to pump them._ _

__Houser and Earl did some sanitation work back in the day, and thankfully they remembered enough between them to teach the more engineering-inclined how to do it. Securing a sanitation truck was another issue, of course—that had been a long and miserable scouting mission. Find the truck, send someone back to bring tools and the biofuel in jerrycans, hotwire it, and move the old thing along hoping it didn’t break down. All the while, open to ambush and making a damned racket. They only had to deal with a handful of infected that day, thankfully. One got stuck in the wheel-well of the truck, though. That was a real bother. Cedric had to walk across the road and vomit in the trees after seeing that._ _

__Now, when someone’s house comes up on the schedule, they fill up the truck and drive miles into Idaho to a town downstream of Jackson and dump it all into that town’s sewers and shovel in lime after it and get the fuck out. Look, it’s not perfect, but it’s worked so far. Not like Jackson produces enough shit for it to be a real problem._ _

__\---_ _

__All the meat in Jackson is well done._ _

__The older people complain, of course. This is, after all, free-range, grass fed beef, top of the line—cooked all the way through? Madness._ _

__But intestinal parasites have moved up the food chain in the past twenty years. Better precaution than cholera._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Bit of this, bit of that._


	6. Quiet

The gas mask supply is a continual concern.

Not the masks themselves—the filters, specifically. Lifespan of the pre-outbreak military filters was only five years, to begin with. And once exposed to spores, they only have a day’s worth of life in them. Twenty-four hours of spore-breathing sounds pretty good, until you realize how long it takes to clear a nest—and the acid fumes and the smoke from the fire just speeds up the filter decay.

One of the few good things FEDRA provided was a bit of knowledge as to how the fungus worked. Its spores are—relative to other airborne particles—massive. White blood cells can’t successfully attack an object that much larger them themselves. The weight of these spores also allows them to gather in the base of the lungs. What does that mean? Well, a large spore means just about anything can be used as a filter. For some reason, even if the spores irritate the eyes, or land in open wounds, they don’t plant. The lung tissue is what it wants.

Carter and Voere and Marquez have bit of a system going—producing activated charcoal, cutting open an old filter, refilling it and replacing the wadding, then welding the plastic back together. Not as good as the   
real thing, and if anyone on patrol comes up against infected deploying nerve agents they’re dead on the feet, but it’s better than nothing.

\---

Jackson had its own distillery, before all this. It’s to be expected when you live in the middle of nowhere and the winters are bitter.

Its output is smaller, now, but no less potent. Safer than the moonshine one was likely to find in the packs of traders or stashed away in some forgotten dead drop. 

\---

Pike saw something in the graveyard.

The problem is that she’s had more than a fistful to drink already. There had been a dance in the church tonight (the Protestant one)—and from the music and laughter and shouts still drifting out over the barren streets, it’s still going. Pike made an appearance—as part of the old guard, that’s what she does, _makes an appearance—_ then left as soon as she turned tired eyes to Maria; she gave her a discreet nod.

But even if the surface of her skin is humming against the chill of the night, she knows what she saw. 

She rests her hand upon the grip of her pistol and slowly walks through the wrought-iron gate. 

(Eugene has a joke.

“Been thinkin’ about getting some new property. The ol’ bungalow’s getting a little stale.”

“Where?” Someone would ask.

“I like the look of Fourth and Maple,” he would supply mildly. Then the laughs would come—some surprised, some shocked, and a few admonishing comments about Eugene’s fine bill of health.

For visitors, traders, or the newest of the new bloods, someone would lean over and say, “That’s the cemetery.”)

She swivels her head back and forth. Her breathing is slow and even. She listens. The world fades into and out of focus, and she feels out the spaces between—

And then that distinct sound: glass scraping against stone.

Pike relaxes. She looks back at the street—still empty. “So you didn’t feel like dancing,” she says over her shoulder. Silence meets her. She counts it out—nine, ten, eleven—until finally:

“Looks who’s talking.”

Pike frowns. She hadn’t seen Ellie at the dance—she had expected her to be cloistered in her room. Not… out here. Not like this. Pike walks among the gravestones, row by row, until she spots a shadow slouched low against one. The glint of a bottle in the moonlight makes her easy to find.

Ellie takes a pull from the bottle. She doesn’t look up. “You lookin’ for me?”

“No.”

Ellie snorts.

Pike shrugs. “Whether you believe me or not doesn’t make a difference.”

“Then why are you even here?”

Pike hesitates. Has she told anyone about this? Probably not. Tommy and Maria know, but that’s different. Hiding things from them is… difficult. “I like to sit here. And think.” 

“Oh, I take your spot?” Can’t mistake that mocking tone.

“No.” Pike points, even if Ellie isn’t looking. “Farther up. Josephine May Carver. 1900-1919.Typhoid.”

“Not much of a talker, is she?”

Pike looks back down at Ellie. “She and I have that in common.” 

It’s like that for a while: Pike, standing, watching the street, looking at the stars. Ellie, sitting, drinking, not doing much else.

“Look, Pike, what d’you want?”

Pike is somewhat annoyed. She was just getting used to the idea of sharing her quiet spot. “I don’t want—”

“Then—look, fuck, can you just leave me alone? Don’t you have a house?”

Pike walks up the row and sits next to Josephine and doesn’t say anything. Time passes. Pike traces the words of Josephine’s grave with a finger, like she’s done countless times before. She recognizes a few of the songs that float overhead. They’re still singing and dancing and drinking. She wonders how they can be so spirited. 

The ground is cold and the stone is cold. It reminds Pike of times before Jackson, wondering if she would wake up in the morning or freeze to death in her sleep. Sometimes—

“… Pike?”

She suppresses a sigh. “Go ahead, Ellie.”

There’s a tentativeness that she’s never heard before. “Were they… asking about me? At the dance?”

“Not really. By now you’ve solidified your status as a...” Loner. Outsider. “An introvert.”

“A… what?”

“Not a… people person.”

“Oh.”

“… Jesse and Dina were looking for you.”

Silence. Then, the sound of liquid sloshing in glass. 

“You gonna tell them?” Ellie’s voice was aloof, yes, but there was a faint waver in it.

“No.” _Why would I?_ is what she wants to add, but Pike keeps her mouth shut.

This is the opposite of what Pike wanted. May as well go home, now. But something wills her to stay. “Where’d you get that?”

“Get what?” That tone again.

Pike doesn’t humor that with a response.

“It’s, uh… look, there was some extra, and—”

Pike pinches the bridge of her nose. Whatever pleasantness that had been swimming in her veins has evaporated. “I’ll write it off. Say it was… a miscount. Ellie, it’s one thing if people think you’re… having… a problem. If things start disappearing too, you’ll just have more eyes on you.”

A pause. A long, defeated sigh. Mist spirals up into the air. “Yeah.”

Pike rises from the grave and walks back to Ellie.

“Sorry, Pike.”

Pike shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re going through. As long as… you go through it.” She gathers everything reassuring she has ever observed—from Maria, from Dottie, from Helen—and after some trepidation, kneels next to Ellie and places a hand on her shoulder. It’s a foreign gesture. Even in this light, Pike can see the surprise reflected in Ellie’s eyes. She holds for a few seconds before withdrawing her hand—maybe a bit too quickly. “I won’t ask. Just… go home. Sleep. No—drink water, then sleep.” Pike pries the bottle from Ellie’s hands—and frowns at how cold her fingers are. “That’s all.”

Ellie pulls at a few dying blades of grass. She keeps looking down at the ground. Then, bracing against the gravestone at her back, she rises—swaying. 

When they both get to the gate, they appraise each other, nod, and go their separate ways.

Pike didn’t know what’s going on with Joel and Ellie. But she knows better than to find out.


	7. Method

Mike. William. Tony. Fred. Astrid. Greg. Bonnie. Tammy. Steve. Chad. Khanh. Katherine. Max. Wendy. Cedric. Scott. Zoey. Ellie. Dina. Jesse. 

Teton County. Wilson Valley. Hoback Pass. Elk Creek. Alpine Valley. Colter Bay. Fox Creek. Swan Valley. Bondurant.

They’re on for this week’s patrol. Tommy is always sure to pair the more experienced and competent soldiers with the newer blood—for the guidance of the experienced, yes, but to keep that young brashness from tumbling into bloody disaster. Simple stuff; send them out in twos for routine stuff around Jackson, threes a little father out, fours farther still. They’ve generally found a thirty mile radius to be a good compromise; far enough to secure, but not so far as to wear out the patrol parties. There are only four roads into Jackson, and as such watching over them for survivors and keeping them clear for traders is prioritized. 

\---

Pike rolls the coins across her palms.

Jackson credits are a newer introduction. In the beginning, when everyone knew everyone, money was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Now—with traders and travelers passing through—altruism alone isn’t quite enough.

Then again, the coins didn’t exactly catch on with the residents of Jackson. They were too used to the reality of life—of scraping and scrounging and sharing what little they had. Of strangers becoming family, bound together by loss and misery. So now the coins were mostly for the old blood to gamble with on game nights and the kids to collect and argue over. Voere mentioned something about “primitive communal societies,” and Tommy had said, waving his hands, “Jackson ain’t no nudist hippie colony! Don’t advertise that!”

Making them wasn’t too hard. Aluminum melts easily enough—just into a mold, stamp them with a ‘J’ in the middle, and there you have it. Won’t rust, lightweight. Simple. 

\---

Milton’s nice enough. Not exactly a killer. The guys in Jackson call him “Mil-Spec” to belabor this point. Even during those lean winters he still has a jovial roundness to him, a fable-like redness in his cheeks. But he’s an accomplished patroller, commands respect despite his humility. 

“Pike… Do you think I’m a good person?”

Pike swivels her gaze over to Milton, eyes narrowing. She doesn’t say anything. He’s not looking at her. He’s staring into the fire.

“I never told you about—” He lifts a hand, gesturing at nothing. “About the start. Right?”

Pike is silent.

“No one knows, not even Maria. I… there were these guys. My cousin knew a guy, that guy’s brother was—I mean, we all got together. There were nine of us. It was the first month. We got out of the city, and—” He stops. “We held on.” He clasps his hands together. “We… did okay. Not great. Better than others. But it was okay for what everything was. The end of everything. The end of… life. That’s what it was, right? Everything was over.”

Pike is silent. 

“There were woods on either side of this road, and we saw some people trying to get by without us noticing. There was a family. A mom and dad and their daughter.” He says the last word quickly. He stops. He looks surprised, like he didn’t expect to say it. "They were traveling to… somewhere in the country. Relatives, a timeshare, I don’t know. But they were well-fed, so we asked where they came from. The dad did all the talking. Fast talk. So then we ask them where he’s going. He makes it sound like he’s in a big group, you know. Like he was part of something. We knew he wasn’t. You could tell, looking at him, just a dad who promised to protect his wife when everything was safe and now he finally had to find a way to do it. He wasn’t a bad guy. He was trying. Everyone was trying.”

Milton swallows.

“So the—my cousin’s friend—he looks back at us, and everyone knows what to do. We beat him up, tie him up, and take him a little ways away from his family. And my cousin gives me his gun and says to keep an eye on the women. So I do. So it’s just me, walking back to where they are. They’re just frozen there. They don’t know what to do. And I’m standing over them. And I—I had never done anything like that. I had never had anyone be afraid of me. But they’re just staring at me and holding on to each other. I was fourteen. Pike, I was fourteen, I had never—”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. He’s gripping on to his knees, rocking back and forth slightly. 

“And it felt good. Pike, it felt fucking good. No one had ever—I was nobody. But to them, I was somebody. I was the most important fucking person in the world to them, in that moment. I was god. I was god for a little while. And I liked it. And I knew I shouldn’t have but I didn’t care. The girl was my age. Maybe a little older. I was fourteen, girls weren’t looking at me in school, I—I—”

He buries his face in his hands. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t, Pike. I just waited. They dragged the dad back. We had to make it to the next safe area by nightfall, and we just left them. One of the guys wanted to—they rest didn’t let him. They didn’t have much to take but we took it anyway. I don’t know if they survived, Pike. I don’t know. But I always think about—what if it was ten more minutes? What if they took too long and I ended up—”

Pike is silent. Looking at him. Milton is looking into the night, into the past. 

“I always wondered. And since, I’ve always promised to be better. I have to be better.” He brings his eyes back to earth. Back to Pike. “Do you… ?”

“You’re here now,” Pike says. “You chose to be.”

He just nods. Looks smaller than Pike had ever seen him.


End file.
